One of Julian Assange’s key supporters came under fire today after naming on live television a woman who has accused the WikiLeaks founder of sexual assault.

Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, was attacked for showing “little respect for judicial process” by naming one of two women who claim they were assaulted in Sweden.

If the alleged assault had taken place in Britain, it would have been illegal to broadcast the woman’s name.

Mr Murray, who blew the whistle on the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” of terrorism suspects, today refused to apologise for his outburst on BBC2’s Newsnight. On his blog, he wrote: “The furore that I ‘revealed’ her name is a pathetic spasm of false indignation by Establishment supporters.”

Another Assange supporter, Respect MP George Galloway, earlier suggested in a video blog that the accusations against the Australian amounted to bad “sexual etiquette” rather than rape.

Financier Ben Goldsmith today tweeted: “I’m with @georgegalloway on Assange. Trumped up Swedish ‘rape’ charges are a ruse to get him to an American jail. Scary stuff.”

The 31-year-old brother of MP Zac Goldsmith and Jemima Khan later appeared to have deleted the tweet.

Another wrote: “Craig Murray just inadvertently shown us how little respect the Assange supporters have for judicial process.”

On last night’s programme, Mr Murray said: “It’s well worth people going online to discover what they can about the allegations, about how they were made, who made them, what the people who made them did afterwards.”

Joan Smith, of the National Secular Society, appearing alongside him, interrupted: “How do you know about these women?”

He continued: “I’m going to say some things that I know to be true. XXXX XXXXX, who’s the one who claims…”

Both Ms Smith and host Gavin Esler tried to stopped him from going further but Mr Murray continued, claiming the name was in general circulation.

Today he said: “Gavin Esler, Joan Smith and I all knew her name — what special rights do we enjoy that entitle us to know that, but would intend to debar the viewers from knowing?”

Mr Assange has been granted asylum by Ecuador amid claims he risks being deported from Sweden to the US to faces charges over WikiLeaks.

President Rafael Correa said Britain would be committing “diplomatic suicide” if police entered the London embassy to arrest Mr Assange as “people could then enter their diplomatic premises all around the world”.